WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, No. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH; To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO. PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. XLVIII. MARCH, 1821. VOL. VIII. EXTRACTS FROM A LOST (AND FOUND) MEMORANDUM BOOK. Preliminary Letter-Extracts-Strictures on Political Economy, wherein a Remedy for the Poor Laws is Divulged—Diary-Cockney Letter and Love Song-The Somnambulatory Butcher, an Episode-Ailie Mushat's Cairn-Hora Sinicæ, No. II. Ode on the death of Yahmahsseero-Stanzas on Despair, and Thoughts on a New Conjugation. To CHRISTOPHER NORTH, Esq. SIR,-While lately travelling through part of England, a thing which is customary with me twice a-year, for the transaction of business, I happened, in the stage between Bath and to meet with a circumstance, which is the occasion of my now addressing you. As I do not happen to be of the melancholic temperament, and am rather fond, than otherwise, of society, it is not unusual for me, as I am a bachelor, and have the happiness or misery of travelling alone, when I fall in with a landlord of genteelish manners, and good nature, to ask him to a participation of my supper. By good luck, it fell out that I here found a man to my mind. After supper was discussed, and our rummers charged for the second time, the spirit of my host began to expand; and, in the midst of his hilarity, he let me in to numerous anecdotes of his own; some of which might have been spared, and many of which were entertaining enough. I shall confine myself to that, which is the subject of my present epistle. About two years ago, a military gentleman, of what rank he could not learn, except that his companions sometimes called him General, took up abode with him for eight days; and lived, during the whole of that time, to use a proverbial expression, “at rack and manger." Every stranger that arrived within that time, at the inn, seemed to be of his acquaintance; or, if they were unknown to him, a friendship was soon begun and cemented; and ere they were a couple of hours together, one could have sworn that they had been born in the same village-educated at the same school-or, to bring forward a still stronger link of association, which the author of Rob Roy has mentioned, " had read from the same Bible at church." Whoever was with him, whether the social VOL. VIII. 4 G or the serious, he regularly obliged them to sit till three in the morning, when he sent them, or, more properly speaking, led them, to their bed-rooms. At length, having ordered breakfast one morning, he disappeared, and the landlord could never afterwards find one token or trace of him. He left behind him a green-net purse, (containing more than the amount of his bill,) and the chambermaid drowned in tears. He was remarkably tall, of rather a spare habit of body, wore neatly curled brown whiskers, a grey surtout, Wellington boots, with spurs, and a South-Sea cap, with a gold band. He had no baggage with him; and the only relique of his visit was a little book, which he had inadvertently left in his bed-room. I begged a sight of this relique from my host, and was not a little struck with its contents. It is a small volume, in red binding, fastened with tapeon the back, in gilt letters, is marked " Memorandum Book." After looking over a few pages, I was highly amused with its contents, and expressed myself so to my host, who obligingly told me it was of no use to him, and that I was most welcome to it. Its contents are of a most miscellaneous nature, and written, in some parts, in a rather illegible hand. I have made one of my young men transcribe a piece from it, here and there, which you will receive along with this, and which you may make public if you please. Should I observe this to be the case, I may transmit you a few farther extracts from time to time. I remain yours, &c. February 10, 1021. J-T-N. EXTRACTS. No. I. STRICTURES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, WHEREIN A REMEDY FOR THE POOR LAWS IS DIVULGED. Insula, sole occidente, viridi, seculis plurimis elapsis, præclarus vir militaris apparebitque florebit. Ille non modo omni sapientiæ re, sed omni philosophiæ discet et docebit; poeta etiamque celebris. It is only of late years that political economy has raised itself to the dignity of a science. Doctrines, that men believed to be as true as Father Paul's history of the Council of Trent, were nevertheless neglected; and other theories, as unsubstantial as the morning mis, though known and acknowledged to be false, substituted in their stead, and acted on. As Jeffrey said of Wordsworth's Excursion, "this would never do." The chaff has been sifted from the wheat-the truth has been purified from the error-and the facts that before were scattered, like the twelve tribes of Israel, over the face of society, have been brought together, and cemented into a regular and almost complete fabric; under the auspices of Malthus, Godwin, Weyland, Say, Frag. M.S. Vet. apud. Vatican. James Grahame, M'Culloch, Jeremy Bentham, and the writer of the present article. But what is the rising of the stocks to him who has no capital?-What is the question about the balance of trade to him who has no merchandize? And what is the worth of our knowing the right principles, if we find it impossible to act on them ?-It is of no use to know the nature of the disease, if we have not a plaster to apply, or a remedy to prescribe. We cannot make as good silks in England as we can get from India; nor can we afford to sell them as cheap, we want materiel. · But then it would overpower the feelings of our humanity to ruin the 40,000 families, that are employed in that branch of manu facture. The silk spun in this country is by no means so good; whether it be the case that the silk-worm does not keep its health in our northern latitudes, or not, I have too little confidence in my own opinion to say: but this I can tell from experience, that we are more apt to be mistaken as to the animal itself, thereby rendering all our labour fruitless, and our efforts abortive. The writer of this article bought several papers full of the embryos of the silk-worm, but after waiting in eager expectation for a twelvemonth, to his utter consternation and astonishment, they turned out to be nought else but common maggots. The poor-rates are a great bore in this country, but it is all owing to the excess of population, and for this I have before suggested a remedy. If the overplus of the population were to be called together, and some able speaker, say one of the advocates of the Scottish bar, selected to address them, and lay down to them in a placid and precise manner, the hardships they entail on society, and the impropriety of their ever having been born, unquestionably then the overplus of population, provided they consisted of well-educated, decent, and sensible people, could have no objection either to be transported beyond seas, or dispatched in as gentle a manner as could be devised. Until a great national meeting is called for the purpose, we must be content to put up with many evils. Mendicity is not the least of these, and to the public in general we recommend the following plan, which is as yet in private circulation, and does not seem to have reached the ear of the Society for the Suppression of Begging. It originated from the ingenuity of one of that useful class of the community, a French cook; but as he had been for several years domesticated in this country, no other realm can presume to come in for a share of the honour, which is purely national. It is said that M. Say, Benjamin Constant, and Carnot, claim it for France; but this is only a report. The house, in which this ingenious French cook served, was infested from morning to night, and the court-yard literally swarming with beggars, as July 10th.-Settled with Bullock and Badcock for the " Poems by a Military Amateur. Balance in my favour of " thick as the motes that people the sun-beams." The proprictor was dunned with petitions, and the watch-dog, which was chained at the outer gate, had actually worn down his teeth to the stumps in biting the intruders. No further service could thus be expected from him. Long did the French cook ponder, during his evening reveries over his tumbler by the kitchen fire, what could be done in the present unfortunate dilemma. For a long series of evenings he beat his brains to no purpose; at length, after a long hour's silence, he one night started up, and almost severed, with his heel, the butler's gouty toe from his body, exclaiming" Eureka! I have found it!!" He set about preparing a most hellish decoction, which he seasoned with Cayenne pepper, (the Capsicum Annuum of Linnæus), until it was enough, without a metaphor, to set the stomach on fire, and cause an "interna conflagratio." Next morning he set about putting his project in practice, and the first beggar that approached he beckoned him to come in, shut the kitchen door, and having filled out a bumper, bade him whip it off, and be gone, lest his master should appear. The mendicant, glad of the treat, turned up his little finger in a twinkling, and retreated as fast as his legs could carry him, but not far; for his eyes threatened to start from his head, and the saliva ran from the corners of his mouth, after the fashion of a waterspout. Thus was one dispatched; he came no more. Again-again-a hundred times was the project tried, and uniformly with the same success; till, in less than three weeks, not one beggar was to be seen in that country side. The French cook is, we understand, at present putting in for a patent, which we have no doubt will be granted. By this the public may observe, that the way to get quit of beggars is by the immediate use of the hellish decoction; and not by following the yain, void, visionary, childish, and nugatory schemes, at present inculcated by the writers on political economy. M. O. L. 3: 15: 11. Very bad concern. Cost me three month's severe composition. Cannot fathom what the read |